How to Save A Life
by iceiceiceiceice
Summary: AU to 11x18 and Forward... read how I imagine things would have happened if Meredith had decided to go to DC with Derek
1. Chapter 1

Hope you like it...

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* * *

 _A surgical residency is all about training for the worst. But as prepared as we might be, we usually don't see disaster coming. We can try to envision the worst-case scenario to foresee catastrophe. But when true disaster strikes, it often comes out of nowhere._

* * *

"Okay, tell me is this real? I've always secretly wanted to do this." Derek smiled and looked at Meredith while they were driving through Washington states' conifer forest. "Take the day off -just you me and the kids. We're gonna do this a whole lot more when we get home. Ride the ferryboat… all day if we want. I love you, Meredith!" Going on a family trip was something he hadn't gotten around to do in a long time.  
"I love you! And this was the best ferryboat ride we ever had!" Meredith said. The weather had been classic Seattle and the water had been incredibly blue.  
"48 uninterrupted hours?" Derek wondered.  
"Hardly uninterrupted… we are taking the Kids with us." Meredith giggled "You can be glad that they are asleep"  
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you!" He took her hand and kissed the back of her hand.  
"and I want to spend the rest of my life with you!" Meredith smiled softly.  
He couldn't believe how blessed he had really been all these years since waking up on her living room floor. "Do you realize that we never had a honeymoon? We were always way too busy…"  
"surviving an unusual number of bad things." Meredith giggled. It was true. They had survived a ferryboat crash, a bomb explosion, a shooting, a car crash and a plane crash.  
"So this is good… for a second I thought it was because you didn't trust me enough to go alone" Derek smiled. By now Meredith had forgiven him, but there was something she needed to talk to him about. Only Maggie knew so far. "or maybe there was something I wanted to tell you… but this has to wait until we arrive in DC." Meredith smiled.

* * *

 _The second time it happens, it's even faster than the first._ _One moment, everything in your life is promise and planning._

* * *

The phone rang and Derek used the hands-free equipment to accept the call when Amelia popped up on the on-board Screen of his Porsche's Information System "You're never gonna make your flight." Amelia teased him.  
"I'll make it." Derek insisted and took Meredith's hand. He knew that everybody else was still unaware that she had asked Richard to cover her service for her and come with him instead.  
"No, you won't." Amelia told him while she was standing in the middle of the OR.  
"You're gonna miss your flight." Someone interrupted their fraternal call.  
"Who's that? Bailey?" Derek laughed "I'm not gonna miss my flight."  
"There was a huge accident on the 5. All the lanes are closed. The traffic is insane." April told them. They knew. They had been stuck on the 5 for almost thirty minutes.  
"Now, why does Kepner make that sound like it's a good thing?" Derek wondered.  
"We have a guy from the accident on our table. Bailey and Kepner are sewing up all the holes in his gut. I am repairing the un-repairable. I am out-of-control amazing." Amelia smiled "I'm a superhero. You get that? Your little sister is being a superhero."  
"No, I am out-of-control amazing. You are a guest in my guts. Hush. The point is you might as well turn around now 'cause you'll miss your flight." April smiled "There's so much surgery, you might forget everything around you. It's like this crazy high"  
"I'm not gonna miss my flight. I have a secret shortcut." Derek smiled and took Meredith's hand.  
"There are no shortcuts to the airport." Amelia insisted.  
"That you know about." Derek nodded. She had only ever left Seattle once since she arrived while he had driven the way quite a few times since his job in DC had started. There had been quite a few lose ends that he had neede to tie up.  
"Come on. I'm doing a spondylolisthesis today. I'm saying if you head back now, I might let you  
I'm gonna lose you here in a second. Cellphone reception's bad." Derek lied to cut them off because Meredith had started to giggle.  
"Derek, are you still there? I can't hear you." Amelia wondered.  
"No, I said I'm gonna lose the cellphone reception. It's bad here. - Amy? –" Derek hung up and looked at his laughing wife. "You could have told her you were with me..."  
"She's annoying...an you shouldn't have lied about the cell phone reception" Meredith smiled.

They drove in silence for a few minutes until Derek tried to get Meredith to confess to him what she had been hiding in the bath room "Well, let's, uh, let's talk honeymoon."  
"We're headed to DC. I thought this was our honeymoon." Meredith giggled.  
"No, Meredith, This is just the just the beginning." Derek inhaled deeply  
"So what about Paris? I went there after med School." Meredith suggested.  
"Too cold. I want the beach. Mm. And you know I've always wanted to go to Bali" he told her.  
"Yeah? Bali, Indonesia, huh?- Mm-hmm." Meredith turned around and looked at Bailey who had just opened his eyes and started to get fuzzy "hey, buddy, what do you think about a 23-hour plane ride, huh?"  
"No?" Derek laughed "Okay, we'll just dose him with Gravol and scotch."  
"Bali it is." Meredith smiled.

Their laughter was interrupted by another call. "Hi Owen" Meredith giggled.  
"Meredith? I thought your name was on the board." She clarified.  
"Pushed it and took a day off."  
"I'm glad I was able to catch you which means you are not at the Airport yet." He told them.  
"Got Held up in traffic!" Derek nodded.  
"Okay, Derek. Meredith. Guys, I didn't wanna have to do this, but we're kind of out of options." He told them. In the background he order someone "Hey, I want all those extra beds lining the hallway for the overflow patients." Afterwards he managed to focus on their conversation again. "Did you hear about the pile-up?"  
"Do you need us to come back in?" Meredith wondered.  
"No, that's not why I'm calling. There's another problem." He paused "City's in gridlock. Almost every ambulance is tied up on the highway." He told them before he was interrupted again "Rosa, can you go to the lab and get all the O-neg and plasma that they have? Thank you. " He sighed "Listen, dispatch called. Passenger van and a sportscar lost control and overturned. They want us to send someone to buy time until an ambulance frees up. The accident is on your way up to the airport. Guys, listen. There are kids."  
"Oh. We have to." Derek looked at Meredith "Text us the address."  
"Okay. Thank you. Oh. And hey, love birds, I heard the news. Congratulations." He smiled and hung up. Meredith made a mental note to kill her sister for telling everyone around the hospital about her secret.

* * *

 _The next second,everything is upside down. Life as you knew it to come hangs in the there's nothing left for anyone to do but hope._

* * *

The scene of the accident a few miles down the road. They saw a mini van and the sports car Owen had mentioned. "You stay with the kids" Derek told her. "I'll take care of them"  
"The kids are sleeping and you can't save everyone" Meredith insisted. "The kids will be fine"

The ran to the van "Ma'am. " he tried to get the driver -a woman her her late thirties or early fourties- to talk to him.  
"Winnie?" she cried.  
"My name's Derek. Are you okay?" he wondered.  
"Winnie! Winnie! Winnie! Winnie!" she kept yelling the name.  
"Hey, I can't open the door." He tried his best  
"Ma'am. What's your name?" Meredith tried to calm her down.  
"Sarah."  
"Sarah, who's Winnie?" Meredith asked. Her voice was calm. She was used to this level of trauma. This wasn't unfamiliar, she was in control. Years of training had helped to keep a level head in a situation like this.  
"My my daughter. She's, uh, she's in the back. She's not answering, and I don't know - if she's okay." The woman cried. -  
"Sarah. Sarah, I need you to stay calm, okay? Deep breaths." Meredith told her and looked at Derek "Good. Stay calm. I'm gonna be right back, okay? Try not to move."  
Derek climbed on top of the car and looked through the back window "Okay. - Hey. You Winnie? Is anything hurt, like your neck or ? Is that why you can't talk?"  
The girl looked at him with her brown eyes "I think I'm dead. Am I dead?"  
"Let me feel your wrist." He looked at the girl and felt a pulse "Well, you're not dead. I can feel a pulse in your wrist. You know what that means?"  
"What?" the little girl wondered.  
"It means your heart's still beating. And you can't be dead if your heart's still beating. You see, I'm a doctor, and I'm telling you if you ever want to know you're dead, feel your pulse. I can feel it." He smile.  
"I'm not dead." The girl told her mother "I'm not dead, mommy!"  
"She's okay?!" the woman looked at Meredith with tears in her eyes.  
"Okay, she's fine." Meredith nodded. "Okay, I'm gonna check on the other driver"  
"You're leaving us?" Winnie asked in panic.  
"What? No." Derek smiled.  
"I can't I can't move. I am stuck." The woman cried.

"Hello? Hello? Hello?" Meredith ran to get closer to the other car which had stopped quite far away from the other car.  
"Help! Help! Help! Hey." Someone yelled. She found a teenager girl who was laying in the bushes.  
"Can you tell me your name?" Meredith wondered. She was taken back to the ambulance crash she ha had when Alex and she had picked up a premature baby.  
"Alana. - Alana." The girl said with short breaths "It's hard to breathe."  
"Okay. All right. Let's take a second. You probably got the wind knocked out of you when you hit the ground." Meredith said and wondered whether she should start doing neurological tests. "Follow my finger. Lucky you didn't hit the pavement. - Yeah. you feel any pain?"  
"I don't I don't think so." The teenager told her.  
"Does it hurt anywhere?" she wondered.  
"No." The girl said and started to cry "I'm not supposed to be here. I have to go. - I I have to go. I have to go." She got up and Meredith held on to her.  
"Careful. Careful." Meredith said and followed her while she was tumbling back to the street.  
"I have to call my mom. Where's my phone?" she wondered and looked to the ground "My phone's not working. Why is my phone not working?"  
"Listen to me. Listen to me. You're probably in shock, okay? You have a lot of adrenaline going through you right now." Meredith tried to get her to sit down "There might be something wrong with you that you don't feel right now, so I need you - to slow down. - Okay. All right. Can you tell me what day it is?"  
"Thursday. I'm supposed to be at school. In chem. We have a quiz." The girl told her.  
"Is that why you were driving so fast?" Meredith wondered.  
"I wasn't driving." The girl stated.  
"Who was driving?" Meredith wondered. If she wasn't the driver, someone else was here.  
"Charlie. It's his dad's car." The girl said and Meredith hurried to check if there was anyone inside the car that was still flipped over on the wrong side of the road.

"Help me get him out of there." Meredith interrupted his husband's efforts to get the woman out of the car.  
"What's wrong with him? Why isn't he saying anything? Charlie?" Alana whispered hysterically.  
"He hit his head really hard. I need to find a first-aid kit." Meredith ran to their car and looked in the trunk. "Oh, you got to be kidding me." She mumbled when she couldn't find one.

Suddenly Derek saw smoke from the sportscar "Hey! - Alana, run!" Meredith yelled as her husband was running towards the car.  
"What about Charlie?" the girl wondered as Derek was trying to get the boy out of the car wreck.  
"Get away from the car!" Meredith yelled "Come on, Charlie, you got to get up. - Get up!" Derek pulled the boy out seconds before the car exploded.  
"Meredith. What's wrong with me? Is it my stomach? - Is it bleeding?" the girl looked at her and suddenly Meredith saw the girl's injuries.  
"It's okay." She tried to calm her down -it wasn't. Her intestine was hanging out of her abdominal cavitiy.  
"Am I dying? I want to know." The girl insisted.  
"No, no, no. " Meredith tried to calm her down. "You have a little cut in your tummy. It's gonna be okay. It's no big deal. I can take care of it." Usually she would have been able to. In an OR it was an injury an intern could have handled.  
"How are you gonna fix it? You don't know. Oh, my god, I'm gonna die out here." The girl saw it in her face.  
"Can you stop saying that? It's insulting. I don't let people die. I'm very good at my job, even next to the roadside, okay?" Meredith told her "I usually do this in ORs"  
"And very modest about it, too." Derek teased her.  
"Shut up!" Meredith told him. Meredith and Derek laughed when Meredith realized that they had picked up Derek's dry-cleaning in the morning.

Alana and Winnie were sitting by Meredith's side. Derek was close by trying to reestablish the blood flow in the woman's leg. Winne helped Meredith to cut the dry cleaning bags. Minutes later she started to wrap the girl up to seal off the tear until she got to the OR "So, Charlie kissed you this morning. - Was that your first kiss?" Meredith wondered.  
"Yes. Except for the guy who plays second-chair cello. He doesn't count."  
"Why?" Winnie wondered.  
"It was just practice kissing. So, should I be practicing?" the girl looked at Meredith.  
"No." Meredith looked up from the woun.  
"Yeah, but she just" Winnie tried to argue, but Meredith knew how to be the adult in a situation like this "But how much trouble do you think she's gonna be in when her mother finds out what she's been up to today?"  
"She has a point. I'm not your role model. I don't think kissing Charlie was worth all this." Alana sighed.  
"Every kiss before the right kiss doesn't count anyway. I've kissed a lot of women. The first time I kissed my wife, well I mean, she wasn't my wife then. She was just this girl in a bar." He said and looked at Meredith "And when we kissed, it it was like I got to tell you, it was like I never kissed any other woman before. It was like the first kiss. The right kiss."  
Meredith looked into Derek's eyes and smiled.

Alana looked up and heard the siren "The ambulance is coming." Meredith smiled.

"Here we go. Help is on its way. Help is here." Derek told Winnie while her mother was put onto a gurney "You'll be all right. You'll be okay."  
They closed their car door when Meredith realized that she had been there before.  
"Let's go to the Airport!" Derek smiled.  
"Oh. I almost forgot about that." She whispered incoherently. He had no clue what she was talking about.  
"We could just drive home, postpone DC. Have a lot of sex" Derek suggested while Meredith was flying through the insides of an ambulance in her mind.  
"No" she said like she knew what was about to happen.  
"Next stop, Washington." Derek smiled and started to turn the car. "Mmm. Paradise here we come."

* * *

 _Why do bad things happen to good people? We ask that question so often, it's become a cliché. But that's because bad things do happen to good people. Constantly. You just have to hope that when it's your turn, you'll know what to do how to cope, how to the truth is you don't know how you'll react to your worst-case scenario -not until it happens._

* * *

It was like a scene in a movie. She never saw it coming and then everything happened in slow moting. It was like she was flying through the ambulance again. She heard the blaring horn, she yelled "Derek" and looked at her husband. Tires screeched and there was a loud bang and she blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

_If you're a normal person, one of the few things you can count on in life is death. But if you're a surgeon, even that comfort is taken away from you. Surgeons cheat death. We prolong it. We deny it. We stand and defiantly give death the finger._

* * *

Chaos, one minute is in flow, but the next moment you hit capacity and everything turns into chaos. The ER was overcrowded, residents and attendings were running around and it was hard to keep track who was a patient and who was merely a bystander to the dramas that went down in the ER "Okay, everybody, listen up." Owen yelled "If you are here with your loved ones and you are not injured, I need you to go back out into the waiting room. That goes for anybody non-emerge as well. We need space to work. We will come to you when we are ready." A few people left, but the signal above the entrance alerted them that another ambulance was going to arrive very soon  
"Dr. Webber, take the second kid from the van accident." Owen told April. He had heard about the girl's abdominal injuries from Meredith.  
"On it." The old surgeon nodded and told two interns to access the extend of the injury.  
"Abdominal lacerations. I think they run pretty deep." The fresh out of med school red head told him. "She needs surgery"  
"Please, let us stay together." The boy who had sat next to her told them.  
"Yeah. It's gonna be okay." The other intern told the boy and asked him to take a seat in the waiting area.  
"Dr. Emerson, get this girl up to the OR." Dr. Weber ordered and looked at the wailing sirens. There were more ambulances coming.

The boy walked into the ER and sat down. His vision turned blury and he collapsed. When he opened his eyes again, he felt a huge ache in his head. He must have fallen. What was this light? He wondered.  
A doctor with long dark hair was using a light and he heard her voice. "Can you hear me?" she wondered. "My head hurts" he mumbled. "Hey, you know those doctors from the accident? Well, they're like a couple of superheroes. - You know? He saved all of us! He pulled me out of the car before it exploded!" he told her. Amelia rolled her eyes. This was going to be another superhero story her brother could tell to the family. They had hailed him for a hero after he had pulled her out of the wreck of his car. Just like the boy she wouldn't be here, if it wasn't for her brother's heroism.  
"Edwards –" she started, but the boy started to seize and instead of shouting orders she yelled at a nurse and hoped that they'd managed to get to the medical cabinet fast enough. She closed the blinds and told an intern "- Crap. Hey, get these kids out of here right now."  
"Okay, just, uh, just breathe deeply." She told him and turned him to the side.  
"Are you insane? His left pupil is blown." She told Dr. Edwards. "Okay, someone get me an OR"  
"All the ORs are taken, Dr. Shepherd." Stephanie told her. "We have to do it here"

April looked at the ambulance "Got more incoming! Come on! Let's go, people! Excuse me, guys. Can we get through here?" she yelled. She was good at handling the chaos in the ER, why was she so bad at trying to cope with her own personal trauma. "Thank you. Thank you." She yelled. The gurney clattered and the doors open. A paramedic jumped out. "She's unresponsive and tachycardic"  
April was working in her usual routing before she noticed who she was looking at "So what have we got?" she mumbled.  
"She's unresponsive and tachycardic." The paramedic repeated.  
"Meredith!" April looked at her "We need a large bore I.V. with ringers! And more hands out here! All hands, right now!"  
"I'm right here, April. I can , go! Let's move!" Dr. Bailey wondered and looked at the paramedic "Where are the others?"  
"They're right behind us. Any minute." He told Bailey.  
"Move. Move!" April yelled. They had to get Meredith into an OR as fast as possible.

Meanwhile Amelia was busy in trauma room 2. "You should have gotten him up to Imaging when there was time." Amelia lashed out. She prayed to God that doing surgery in this kind of environment wouldn't cost her her medical license.  
"What if he would have buttomed out inside the MRI?" Edwards wondered "he had collapsed on the ER floor when I found him"  
"He's stable enough, we had time – well, we had time before you opened up his skull and it's like poking in a hornet's nest." Amelia told her "It all derives from a minor bleed that would have resolved itself on its own. Who trained you?"  
"You, you did! Or you didn't. All I was allowed to do all this time is watch even though I'm a kickass surgeon. Every other specialty wants me." Stephanie yelled "I need to be taught"  
"Well, in that case, you should pick every other specialty." Amelia yelled at her.  
"Your pager is going off." Dr. Edwards noticed.  
"Well, I can't leave him open on this table and all other neurosurgeons are in surgery. I have to do this! We'd have to wait 40 minutes for anyone else! So who ever needs me know, has to wait." Amelia told her and hoped that his ICP would go down eventually.

* * *

 _"_ _Derek! Derek!" Meredith yelled. The outside was spinning around herself. She felt dizzy. She was back in the forest. How did she even get here? "Derek!"  
Where was he? She looked around. "Derek where are you?" she yelled. "I don't understand how this keeps happening" she mumbled. She wasn't wearing whatever she wore this morning and she wondered where the kids were.  
A car had hit them and now she was wandering around in the forest. There were leaves and trees everywhere. She was in the middle of the freaking forest again and she didn't know where her kids were or what had happened to her husband. __  
"_ _Meredith" a voice said from behind. She turned around and stopped breathing.  
"You will be fine" the voice insisted  
"Lexie" was all Meredith managed to say. Her sister was standing right in front of her.  
"Am I dead?" she wondered. For a second she felt relived to be with her and hugged her "I missed you"  
"You have to go back! They need you!" Lexie insisted. "You are not supposed to be here. Not yet!" _

* * *

"Come on, Meredith. Stay with us." April told her. She was going in and out of consciousness. At least she was partially responsive, April thought.  
They pushed her gurney down the hall as fast as possible and Maggie crashed into them. "Sorry" the cardio surgeon said until she saw the patient on the gurney. She froze. "What happened to her?"  
"A truck crashed into their car. There's a lot free fluid" April told her.  
"Are you sure you can to it?" Maggie wondered. This was April's first day back and treating a person you knew could put extra pressure on anyone.  
"I can, Dr. Pierce, I'm not some fragile young thing, I'm a trauma surgeon" April told her. "I can do my job. I can't craddle my baby, but I'm pretty sure I can pick up a scalpel and save her. I need to save her"

There was a third ambulance. Jo looked around herself and there was nobody there left. It was her patient, her responsibility. "Derek. Derek, we have to do have to do something." Jo looked at Meredith's husband. "You'll be fine, Dr. Shepherd" she told him. He was unrepsonsive, but his eyes were moving and had been for quite some time according to the EMT. She was the only one left and all trauma rooms were taken and the ORs were backed up. "Do you hear me?" she wondered and he pressed her hand. This was a good sign.  
"Get him a head CT" Jo told one of the interns "and book an OR. If they tell you that there are none, tell them it's Derek Shepherd. I'll try to find a ortho and neuro"  
 _"_ _She's fierce and smart. I've always liked her" Derek thought to herself._

"Meredith, you have two beautiful kids" April started to talk to Meredith "and you survived a shooting and a plane crash and those two beautiful kids, they need someone and it has to be you. Because you have been blessed. You have been blessed with two beautiful kids and... that's something"  
Suddenly Arizona and Maggie ran into the operating room. "She's gonna need an ultrasound." Maggie told April.  
"An ultrasound?" April. "I'm two hands in her abdomen"  
"She isn't talking about an abdominal one, is she?" Arizona looked at Maggie.  
"She's pregnant. She hasn't told anyone. Derek doesn't know. She was going to tell him in DC." Maggie told them.  
"and now, we can't even be sure if there's anything to tell about." April sighed and looked at Arizona.  
"She's going to be fine" Arizona reassured April. "They are all going to be fine"

* * *

 _Derek was in a bed. In a hospital bed and looked at the sun that was shining through his window. The accident -he realized he had been in an accident._ _"_ _Hello, how are you feeling today?"_ _a young doctor with wavy hair walked into the room and checked his chart.  
"You look a little young to be a doctor." He told him.  
"Graduated top of my class at Bowdoin. Eight years ago" The doctor told him "You look good. Considering it's been two weeks since your surgery."  
"It's a great school. You look nervous" he noted.  
"My younger sister is getting married today... and...I have a craniotomy scheduled for 8.30am. My mom made a bet that I wouldn't make it." He laughed "We used to joke that she wouldn't make it home on time for thanksgiving and now it's us."  
"How is she?" Derek wondered.  
"Nervous... I mean, she... what kind of mother wouldn't be nervous before her daughter is getting married?" the young doctor laughed. "I think she's a little sad that the last of us is leaving the house now. __My dad died when we were young... and I want to drop some sort of paternal wisdom on her... and... I'm nervous... what would you tell you daughter?"  
"That she's only four and she might want to wait until she is five." Derek laughed "You know, I was married to the wrong woman once. And then one day I found myself engaged to the right one."  
"How did you know that she was the right one?" the young doctor wondered.  
"Oh, because she got me, you know, warts and all. And every new thing I learned about her just made me love her more and more." Derek smiled "She is the love of my life. So tell her to never stop believing in herself and the person she loves. Tell her that they can do anything if the just believe in themselves. He'll make her feel like she's coming up for fresh air and he'll keep feeling like this"  
"Do you mind if I steal that?" the young boy wondered.  
"Hey What's your name?" Derek wondered.  
"Dr. Shepherd, but I like you, you can call me Derek. I was named after my father." He said "My mom always tells me I have his looks" _

* * *

"Oh, Derek." Jo sighed "You can't die here, you have two beautiful children and you can't leave them."  
 _"_ _I'm trying not to. But, oh, my head is killing me"  
_ "Suction, please." Jo was almost finished fixing the abdominal injuries, she and Callie had stabilized the lung and the rib cage. Suction gurgled "There's too much blood." Callie told her.  
"It's his spleen" Jo concluded. "I've never done this before"  
"Christ, where is the neurosurgeon?" Callie sighed. "and you can do this, Wilson"  
"We've paged them repeatedly" the nurse said "The pile up- they are backed up. They told me they'd send the next available surgeon here"  
Suddenly the door opened. Jo was shocked to see Derek's sister. "His pressure's all over the place." Callie told her. "You should have been here an half an hour ago"  
"Who is he?" Amelia wondered.  
"John Doe." Jo lied. "MVP" Callie swallowed, but she knew that Jo had done the right thing.  
"Hanging more ringers." One of the nurses noted.

Derek's face was covered as Jo had already prepared the incision sites. "Where is Dr. Edwards? I need an assistant." Amelia said and Jo looked up. She had repaired his broken leg, restored blood flow, repaired his abdominal injuries and now she had to step back.  
"Are you sure you don't want me to get someone who's taking over for you?" Stephanie wondered. Stephanie knew that she had been paged to Derek Shepherd's surgery, but Amelia seemed unaware of the fact that she was operating on her brother.  
"I'm the head of the department" Amelia told her "He deserves the best, and that's me! Why wouldn't he want me to operate on him?"  
"Because he isn't John Doe." Jo admitted. Callie sighed and added "It's Derek, Amelia. He's been in an accident" They all stopped and looked at Amelia. Amelia looked at her brother and Jo had turned from an active participant into a silent bystander.  
"Get out of here, Wilson" Amelia told her "I don't want you in here!"

* * *

 _Joe's bar hadn't changed a lot. Twenty years do this to a place like this. "Single Malt Scotch"Derek looked at the bar tender when he sat down at Joe's.  
"A gentleman's drink" Someone was talking to him and Derek turned around. "My mom said my dad used to drink it and he was amazing. I wouldn't know it. He died when I was young" He was standing at Joe's bar and looked at a resident that was about to start their internship.  
"Want one?" he wondered "I really need one. It's been a rough day and I don't even know what I'm doing here."  
"I prefer tequilla, thanks" the girl smiled. "My mom told me not to come here because it's my first day tomorrow -and you wouldn't want to be late for your first day –and a surgeon can never be late, so it's just one drink for me and I'm out of here" When the girl talked about her mother Derek began to remember the night he had met Meredith, he remembered her lovely smile and how she had done her best trying to avoid him.  
"See you tomorrow" Derek smiled. "I didn't catch your name here"  
"It's Zola." The young woman told him "Zola Shepherd. My aunt used to work here and my mom. Hold on, I've seen you before"  
"You must be mistaken" Derek smiled softly "Good luck tomorrow, I'm sure you'll do great!"  
"Thanks!" the girl smiled and watched him leave. _

* * *

"Stephanie just stole my own surgery while I was in the OR" Jo told Alex when she walked into the OR. "Zola, oh my God!"  
"How is he?" Alex wondered.  
"I couldn't tell" Jo sighed. "Amelia is..."  
"Amelia is in there?" Alex wondered "This is not a good idea. There's a reason you shouldn't operate on family"  
"How's Zola doing?" Jo wondered. "You've been in here on your own for quite some time" The monitors started beeping. "I'm sure you need a second pair of hands"  
The monitor started beeping  
"Come on, Zo. Hang in there. It's okay, baby. It's all right. Mommy's here. You're safe. You're safe, Little pumkin." Alex told her. "Suction, please."  
"There's too much blood." Jo said "Christ, what happened to them?"

* * *

 _The elevator doors opened and Meredith walked into the OR floor. OR 3. It was like a strange force pulled her into this room. For some reason she knew she had to go into this OR. Derek was laying on the OR table. She walked toward him. What was going on? "You are here" she whispered.  
He opened his eyes and smiled "Meredith, I saw something._ _I don't know if it_ _it's what might be_ _or will be,_ _but it was amazing. And it made everything we've been through worth it_ _a hundred times over. I promise you that." Derek inhaled and Meredith sobbed because she saw that Derek's lips were turnng blue.  
She tried to touch the image of his body that she saw in front of her, but couldn't reach him " Derek."  
" You can see me." He noted.  
That's all they got. Moments with the people they loved. It's what Denny had told her after the drowning "Don't leave me. I don't know what I'm gonna do without you." She insisted "I can't live without you"  
He knew she could. He sat up wearing an OR gown "You know, I saw them. They were grown._ _They were beautiful._ _They're everything we hoped they'd be." He exhaled and looked up "All three of them." She didn't need to tell him.  
He smiled softly and she carassed his hand.  
"Stay." She insisted. "All of this is ahead of us"  
" I can't." He exhaled and looked down. "Everything that's coming __is beautiful and amazing._ _Oh._ _I'll love you forever._ _I love you so much -and our kids - they are amazing." He cried and she watched the tears run down his face. "You have to go – and I just have to stay here"  
"Yeah, I guess you just have to stay here." Meredith whispered. "Stay here! Don't move! Wait for me!"  
"I'll be back before you know it" he kissed her.  
She was crying and even though she didn't move, they moved further away from each other and saw him fade away before her eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks. "Oh, Derek." She cried._

* * *

The monitor began to beep and Maggie woke up. She had been by her bed side for two hours and suddenly Meredith had started breathing by herself. "Oh! There you are" Maggie smiled and removed the tube.  
"Maggie?" Meredith uttered.  
"You're back." Maggie smiled and used the call button to call one of the residents "Sweetheart, she's back. You've been in an accident, but you and the baby are fine."  
"What about Derek? Or Zola?" Meredith wondered.  
"They're being looked after." Maggie told her.  
"What happened to them?" Meredith was afraid to ask.  
"Derek suffered a skull fracture. Amelia is with him in the OR." Maggie tried to be as professional as possible "Bailey is fine. He's in daycare."  
Meredith inhalted deeply. Why hadn't her sister mentioned Zola yet? "Zola?"  
Maggie inhaled sharply "She's in the OR with Alex." She exhaled.

Meredith started to cry "Oh. Okay. Okay. Meredith, what are you doing?"  
"I-I need to be with them." Meredith told her and got up from her bed noticing a broken rip.  
"No, Meredith. This is not a good idea. You need to stay monitored." Maggie tried to get back into her bed. "You need to rest"  
Meredith's voice broke "I am not staying here while my husband and daughter are in surgery."  
"Meredith" Maggie tried to calm her down "There's nothing you can do right now"  
"No, please. Please, please, don't make me stay here - and do nothing." Meredith insisted. "Maggie, please."

* * *

 _We're born, we live, we die... sometimes not necessarily in that order. We put things to rest, only to have them rise up again. So if death is not the end, what can we count on anymore? Because you sure can't cound on anything in life. Life is the most fragile, unstable, unpredictable thing there is. In fact, there's only one thing in life we can be sure of. It ain't over till it's over._

* * *

"Can you believe that he saved all these people?" Stephanie wondered and told the story the boy had told them. She could that's the reason she hated and loved her brother so much.  
"Dr. Edwards, I need you in here packing these bleeders right now. Gel foam." Amelia was focused on this. It was her brother on the table and at this very second she was violating about 50 protocols  
The monitors started beeping erratically.  
"He's braddy!" Callie told them. "He's braddy."  
"We're losing him." Amelia said. "Every time I pack off these bleeders They just keep coming. His brain is swelling. I don't think I can do this. It's like he's doing this on purpose"

 _"_ _I'm not! Don't you give up._ _Hey._ _Don't give up._ _I don't die._ _Okay? And I won't die._ _So you just keep bringing me back like you always do._ _One more time."_

"Dr. Shepherd?" Stephanie tried to stop her.  
"Don't interrupt me, Edwards!" Amelia yelled. "I have to save him. He saved me twice, he saved my life and I have to save his."


	3. Chapter 3

_Victims of a sudden impact are some of the hardest to treat. It's not just the collision that injures them. It's everything after. The centrifugal force keeps them moving, tossing them from vehicles, throwing them through windshields, slamming their internal organs into their skeleton. Their bodies are injured over and over again. So there's no way to know how much damage has actually been done. Until they stop._

* * *

"Meredith, what are you doing here?" Maggie tried her best to get her sister back to bed, but she moved forward and kept walking. "Okay, what's going on?"  
"Hey, back off, okay? I-I need to go in there." Meredith insisted and walked into Alex' OR. Zola was in front of her and she felt every single bit as terrified as she had when Arizona fixed her shunt years ago.  
"I-I can't let a woman who just survived a major traumatic incident pick up a scalpel and operate." Maggie insisted and tried to push her out of the scrub room.  
"Mer, she'll be fine." Alex insisted. "I know what I'm doing! You should rest. I'm glad you are okay"  
"I'm fine, Alex." Meredith insisted. She needed to do something, the fear of losing Zola or Derek wouldn't make it possible to rest anyway. Her thoughts would be comprimised by the fear that had kept her awake before.  
"Meredith, please." Arizona tried to hold her back. Maggie had paged her on her way to the OR "We'll do everything we can. You need to take care of yourself and your baby"  
"If it were Sofia on that table, would you let that stop you?" Meredith wondered. They both knew that Arizona had been the one to treat Sofia after she was born.  
Arizona nodded "Scrub up. We both will. I'm gonna be her proxy. But, Meredith, you're gonna stay out of the sterile field, and more importantly stay off our backs."  
"Fine." Meredith nodded.  
"Arizona" Alex "I told you to keep her away from the OR"  
"You try keeping a mother away from her sick child." Arizona sighed "How is she?"  
"Her CT shows a tear to her spleen as well as some damage to her left kidney. We'll know more once we fixed the rest." Alex smiled "But I guess she's out of the woods"

* * *

The attending lounge was filled with surgeons who had finished a 24h shift with surgery after surgery. Residents slept on the gurneys in the hall. Indistinct conversations covered Owen's thoughts. He had heard about Derek's and Meredith's accident. "How are they?" he wondered when Bailey sat down next to him.  
"I just came from Meredith's room. She woke up." Bailey told him "and she's out of bed, walking around the halls of this hospital even though she's supposed to rest"  
"Oh, that's amazing." Richard nodded "What about Derek and Zola?"  
"They're both still in surgery -and Wilson told me it's not looking good. Can you imagine if..." Bailey sighed, but didn't continue the thought. "It's taking longer than it should"  
"Has anybody told Amelia?" Owen wondered. He hadn't seen his girlfriend since leaving his trailer this morning.  
"She's in there with him. I thought you knew" Richard stated. "Wilson paged neuro and she arrived."  
"What? You can't be serious." Owen looked at him in disbelief. "She shouldn't operate on her brother. This isn't good for her recovery."  
"She doesn't know. At least..." Bailey stopped "Wilson paged to get help for John Doe. She wouldn't know if his face was covered up."  
"Do you have a clue what happens if she finds out?" Owen wondered. He was taken back to the time when he hadn't told Teddy that her husband was in surgery.

* * *

Amy sat by Derek's bedside in the ICU. She sat on the ground in the dark because it made her feel safe. Winnie didn't even notice her when she walked in. "Derek?" Winnie looked at Derek in the ICU bed next to her mother's. "What happend to you?"  
"You shouldn't be in here." Amelia told her.  
"Is he dead? Is he gonna be all right?" the girl wondered.  
"Where are you supposed to be?" Amelia wondered. She had never seen Winnie before "Whose kid is this? That man do you know him? "  
"Yeah, that's Derek." Winnie nodded.  
"Is he a neighbor? -Was he your doctor?" Amelia sat down next to her.  
"He's my friend. I mean, I just met him today. He pulled me and my mom out of our car after the accident. He fixed her leg, he helped Charlie, and he put Alana's insides back in." The girl described what he had done "He and his wife saved us."  
"He saved you?" Amelia nodded.  
"All of us. He's a doctor. He's a super hero. A surgeon, I think." She said.  
"Do you wanna stay in here with me for a Minute?" Amelia wondered.  
"Yeah" Winnie nodded and sat down next to Derek.

"You're not dead. I know you're not dead. Know how I know? 'Cause I can feel your pulse, which means your heart is beating." Winnie whispered and Amelia desperately wished it was true "Your heart is beating, which means you're not dead, okay?" Tears build up in both the eyes "Hey. Eyes on me. You stay not dead, okay? It's a beautiful day to save lives, right?" she looked at him with her sad brown eyes "So you stay not dead"  
"Are you all right?" Amelia wondered "You've been seing a lot of stuff today"  
"I can deal with seing stuff." The girls said "My dad died right in front of me. We were fishing on the lake and he had a heart attack on the boat and died. Do you fish?"  
"No I don't!" Amelia started to cry. Derek would have taken Zola to go fishing. Derek loved to fish – probably because it was a quiet place far away from his sisters. Mark and Derek would spend most of their days on a boat during the summer throughout their teenage years – before either of of them found out how to use hair products.  
"Is he going to die? He said nobody was going to die today" the girl wondered.  
"I don't know. I'm not God." Amelia told the girl "He's my brother and he's a neurosurgeon – like me. It's going to take a while until we know for sure."  
"It's a beautiful day to save lives, right?" the girl said and Amelia looked at the girl with a hint of surprise "that's what he told us. It's my fault, isn't it? I have this effect on people. They just tend to die around me"  
Amelia tried to hug the girl, but instead she sat down next to her. "Your dad, that's not your fault. There's nothing you could have done and there was nothing you did that caused it. It's just really bad luck that these kind of things happened to you. I want you to close your eyes and tell yourself that it's not your fault everytime you start to think that it was. It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault."

* * *

Meredith looked at Jo's hand "How's the renal artery coming, Dr. Wilson? You should be finishing the anastomosis by now." She told her, but Jo was unimpressed. She knew what to do and she knew that Alex would step in in case something was about to go wrong.  
"Almost there, Dr. Grey. Careful with the sutures. Make sure you get enough please." Alex interrupted her.  
"Sorry, Alex." Meredith smiled. The monitor was beeping steadily.  
"Okay, snip. Graft is in place. Removing the clamp." Jo said and exhaled slowly.  
"Ah! We have full perfusion." Alex smiled "She'll be fine"  
"Thank God. That's my girl." Meredith smiled and kissed Zola's bruised face.  
"You good to close, Dr. Wilson?" Alex wondered. "She's gonna be okay."  
Meredith breathed out as the door opened. It was Edwards who held a set of scans. "Dr. Grey?"  
We need to talk. It's Derek."

* * *

Zola opened her eyes. She knew she was at the hospital, but she hardly remembered anything. One minute she had been sleeping in the back of the car and the next she had been wide awake. There was a loud bang, a Lights were flashing around her, she heard distant noises. People had told her not to worry, the paramedic had told her that everything would be fine.  
"Hey sweetheart." Alex smiled. "I'm glad you are back?"  
"Uncle Alex, where are my mommy and daddy?" The girl wondered and looked at the doctor who had saved her life. Alex swallowed. He didn't want to be the one that broke the news to Zola. He had never done this before. If a child had died on his table, it'd be a set of parents that were left behind. He didn't know how to do it the other way around. She had been an orphan when she first arrived at SGMW and for now she didn't need to know the truth.  
"They are being looked after" Alex told her. "You've been in an accident -and you need to rest." He closed his eyes and cursed the universe for being so screwed up.

* * *

The ICU – monitors. "You said you managed to control the bleeders." Meredith looked at the post op scan. She knew what she was seeing and if this was any other person her judgement wouldn't be clouded.  
"I did." Stephanie bit her lip and Amelia looked down to the ground. Amelia was sitting on the ground and held on to another set of scans. She mumbled "He'll be fine"  
"That's a good thing. Why don't you look like that's a good thing?" Meredith bit her lip even though she knew. Derek had trained her well.  
"Dr. Grey, with diffuse axonal injury Then his chances of making a full recovery are miniscule." Stephanie stated.  
"I know what that means." Meredith tried to look into Amelia's eyes.  
"But that's not the case here, okay? Derek has nine lives, and he will find his way back to us. Do you understand me? My brother is a freaking superhero" Amelia told her resident "I did everything I could"  
Tears ran down Meredith's face and Amelia sat on the floor "There are a series of tests I need to run to assess Derek's level of brain function." Stephanie told them. This was protocol. In 24 hours they'd declare him brain-dead. Meredith had done this more than a couple of time and usually there was little to no hope. The chances were miniscule.  
"Okay, go ahead. He can do it!" Amelia told her "My brother has always been a super hero. He can do this!"  
Meredith took Derek's hand and hoped for a reflex. _'_ _I'm not gonna die' 'Good because that'd be the worst break-up ever'_ She squeezed it and looked at Stephanie "You can start."  
"Okay, maybe you should" Stephanie looked at Amelia. "sit down – on a chair because this is going to take a while."  
"I'm the Head of the Neurosurgery department. I taught you" Amelia insisted like this would magically resurrect her brother from the dead. She got up and walked to the door. "He'll surprise us."  
"Okay, let's start with the doll's eyes test." Edwards nodded. No reaction.

Test after test, test after test. The result remained the same. "Cold choleric test." Stephanie told them while Meredith and Amy kept starring at his dead body that was kept breathing by machines.  
"He said Paris was too cold." Meredith sighed and looked at Amelia with tear filled eyes.  
"Pardon?" Amy turned her head. He had never talked about Paris since returning from his honeymoon.  
"Nothing, it's just our… our honeymoon. We wanted one because we never ha one. I, uh, he brought it up this morning and he wanted to go to the beach." Meredith sighed.  
"He went to Paris for his honeymoon with Addison." Amelia stated. She was able to recall one of Addison's rants about how her brother had spend a whole day in a café talking to one of the waitress while she had been shopping.  
"I never knew this." Meredith cried "There's so much I didn't know about him and he should be there to tell me"  
Dr. Edwards paused and looked at Meredith "Dr. Grey, if this is too difficult"  
"No, I'm fine." Meredith insisted. "Go ahead"  
"Okay. I'm gonna put cold water into Dr. Shepherd's ear. If his eyes deviate towards the water, there's still brain function." Dr. Edwards said and nervously awaited the result. "Here we go."  
"Come on, Derek. Come on." Amelia whispered, but there was no reaction.  
"His eyes remain fixed." Stephanie stated and wrote the result down.  
"Try again." Amelia insisted "He is still in there. He's gonna come back to us, so just do it again."  
"Okay." Stephanie nodded and looked at the despair in the face of her mentor.  
"Don't be afraid, okay, Derek? I'm here. I'm here." Something moved and Amy yelled "Meredith, his hand. His hand."  
She got up and began to check his reflexes "Derek! Derek? Derek, can you hear me? Derek!"  
"Lazarus sign." Stephanie sighed heavily "Spontaneous spinal chord reflexes can make patients"  
"Derek." Amelia insisted.  
"Amelia, stop. Stop! He's dead!" Meredith yelled and started crying in Derek's arm. "Get out of here!"

* * *

Jo walked into the resident's lounge and looked at Stephanie. "Are you okay?" she sat down and looked at her crying friend. "What happened?"  
"I... Shepherd... he's brain dead... I really think he is and his sister is letting me do all these tests and..." Stephanie looked up "I mean, he's... he has kids and... it's my fault and usually you don't feel like this because you don't know the families, but Zola – Dr. Grey made us babysit Zola- we know Zola and...it might be my fault... I might have gorged him and I'm always going to be that person to Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Grey- that person that told them that their husband or brother died. I'm always going to be that person – the one that ruined their life because she wasn't good enough."  
"He's dying?" Jo looked shocked. Callie and she had done everything to keep Derek alive. She had fixed the tear in his hepatic vein and had removed the spleen just in time.  
"Yes" Stephanie nodded "I wasn't good enough. He saved all those people and I wasn't good enough to save him. That's all Dr. Grey is ever going to see in me. How's their kid?"  
"Not dying" Jo sighed.  
Callie came in and looked at the two crying residents. "Hey, no crying in surgery!" she said and sat down right next to them. "I cried in this room when my husband was hit by a bus" she started to laugh "well, he was my ex-husband at that stage and he threw himself in front of the bus to save a random girl and he died... and he."  
"You were married to a guy?" Jo wondered.  
"Yeah, and he cheated on me with your boyfriend's ex-wife" Callie told her. "Anyway, he came into this hospital as John Doe, we did everything we could -and he still didn't make it. He herniated on Derek's table. He was dead"  
"He was hit by a car. I paged neuro immediately when he came in and kept paging them while we fixed his rib cage and his abdominal injuries." Jo said "I... if it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I should have drilled holes to release the pressure the minute I noticed that the pages weren't answered. He was responsive when he came in."  
"It's my fault... the surgery Amelia and I were stuck in... it was the kid from the accident...and he would have been fine without surgery"  
"You haven't killed Derek even if it might feel like it right now, you haven't. But every patient you see is going to remind you of him. He's going to haunt you, the hard ones always do and you are going to see his face, but you'll become better doctors because you'll work harder, so there's no crying in this lounge. They need you in the ER and you are not saving any lives in here." Callie cried and stayed behind.

* * *

"Meredith?" Amelia knocked on the door and opened it just enough to be able to look at Meredith "Meredith, Dr. Ewards wants to do another set of tests"  
"No, it's not necessary." Meredith sighed. She took Derek's hand and there was no reaction.  
"There's a chance" Amelia insisted "People wake up from this. I've seen this happening. I make miracles happen. I make miracles happen! I can call my mentor from John Hopkins"  
"He has no active brain function." Meredith's voice broke and tears started to run down her face again "Derek's... Derek's brain dead. A brain dead neuro surgeon... it's" It was ironic in an Alanis Morisette kind of way. It was a cruel joke.  
"It's not true! He might wake up!" Amelia exhaled sharply "We could try amphetamines or the brain could eventually heal itself over time" She had all sorts of ideas.  
"It wouldn't work, Amy, and he wouldn't want to wake up in sixteen years and have his children look at him like he's a total stranger – like his life had passed him by." Meredith yelled at his sister."Gone's gone- dead is dead and you would tell me just the same if he hadn't ended up on your table. Have you seen the way everyone else is looking at us? They have seen the charts! Look at the scans! There's no coming back from this."  
"You are a cruel bitch! You haven't lost the love of your life, you haven't cried over the body of the person you love most. You don't know how that messes a person up. You didn't have to crawl your way back from this!" Amelia told her.  
"I don't want to see you in this room ever again" Meredith told her. "and I want you to move your stuff out of the house too"

* * *

It was late at night. "Bailey and Zola are okay. He's sleeping and he's just fine. And the baby's fine. Congratulations by the way!" Alex sat down next to Meredith.  
"I don't feel like those are good news right now." She sighed and showed him Derek's chart. She wanted to believe that there was a chance that he'd open his eyes again. "He's...you need to tell me what to do!"  
"Zola was asking for you! Go and talk to her." Alex sighed.  
The monitor was beeping steadily and Meredith exhaled sharply. "I don't get it, you know? I don't. Why do we have to go through it all just to end up right back here again? This morning we made out in the shower and now he's dead. Hooked onto machines. I kicked Amelia out. I hate all of this... She..."  
"is his sister. She's family." Alex took Meredith's hand "So even if she holds onto that tiny bit of hope, she's a neurosurgeon..."  
"How does anyone know when to keep going and when to just let go?" Meredith sighed.  
"You just keep going. You never stop to fight and you hope that one day you pull through." Alex checked the pupilar reflexes himself. "It's how I got to this place, it's how I survived after Izzie left"  
"I'm going to see how Zo is doing." Meredith looked at Alex. "She needs to know. I have to be the one that tells her."

* * *

 _You can't prepare for a sudden impact. You can't brace yourself. It just hits you. Out of nowhere. And suddenly, the life you knew before is over. Forever._

* * *

This felt like the nightmare she had woken up to after another woman had picked up Derek's phone. Derek was gone. Gone. He hadn't left town and started a new life with somebody else. He had left, he had ceased to exist in the present. From now there'd only be a past. "They can't fix him." Meredith tried not to fall apart in front of her daughter. Derek was dead. There was nothing that she could tell her daughter that would make this go away, that would ease the pain, that would lessen the grief.  
"Then you should go in there and fix him." Her daughter insisted. She knew what an amazing doctor her mother was. She had seen her save the blonde girl on the side of the road and in her mind there was nobody her mother couldn't fix.  
"Zola..." Meredith interrupted her daughter with tear filled eyes. She didn't even know how to say this. She hadn't said it and the words died in her mouth. She needed the sound of silence to feel it.  
"You fix everyone." The girl insisted. In a perfect world she would have shielded Derek and the kids, the truck wouldn't have hit them, in a perfect world she would have stayed home and Derek would have gotten to DC before the pile up ever happened. In a perfect world he would have been back for good in 24 hours.  
"I can't fix him." Meredith swallowed and tears were running down her chin. How would she be able to utter those words? She looked at her daughter and she knew that it was her that needed to break the news to her. Bailey was too young to understand, but Zola knew and she had asked where he was.  
"Why?" her daughter said. Meredith closed her eyes.  
"I can't fix him. Because no one can fix him. Because he's dead. Daddy died." She was crying. It was the first time she had said it. Daddy died. Derek was dead. It still felt like a bizarre alternate universe. Zola hugged her and Alex watched her from afar.

.

* * *

.

 _I'm really sorry, but I had to kill off Derek in this story. I wanted to show how not being able to save one of their own would impact the doctors and how Meredith's and Amelia's relationship would change over this (and I really wanted Winnie to talk to Amelia because they shared similiar childhood experiences)_


	4. Chapter 4

_._

* * *

 _The human body is designed to compensate for loss. It adapts, so it no longer needs the thing it can't have. But sometimes the loss is too great, and the body can't compensate on its own. That's when surgeons get involved._

* * *

Edwards walked into the room and saw Amelia and Meredith sitting next to Derek. "I thought that if this was a good time, I might take a moment to explain how this all works." She whispered when both of them looked at her.  
"I know how this works. Where are the papers?" Meredith cut her short. She knew that Liz, Kathleen and Nancy would make it in time to be by Derek's side. She had taken the first plane to Seattle after Owen had notified them. Derek's mother had volunterred to look after the grand children in Conneticut.  
Stephanie swallowed "Dr. Grey, there's some things you need to know, some things we need to discuss. Difficult things. We have to think about what we are going to do." She knew the words. She had said them a couple of times, but this felt different.  
"Edwards, I taught you how to do this. You've waited the requisite number of hours, and now you can officially declare him dead. Normally, you'd talk to me about organ donation. But by the looks of his chart, there's not much left that works to donate." She swallowed and looked at Amelia "So, the I.C.U. needs a bed. Those must be the papers the papers you want me to sign to decide what to do with my husband now that he's dead, but not really dead."  
"He might wake up." Amelia insisted.  
"He won't wake up because you couldn't save him and now you don't want to live with the fact that you killed him and instead you want us to think about shipping him off to a long-term-care facility and cross our fingers and hope for fairy tales and magic?" Meredith told her over the bed "It's not what he would have wanted."  
"I can leave you two alone, if you wish to discuss this first." Stephanie told them "and I would like to ask you to discuss this in another room."  
"There's no need to. I'm his wife." Meredith insisted and took his hand.  
"and I'm his sister." Amelia cried.  
"Derek has a living will. He upated it after the plane crash. The one that killed Mark and Lexie." Meredith pulled out a file "I asked Alex to pull it for me. He wanted me to decide."  
"So you are just going to pull the plug? And stop all curative intervention? Discontinue all routine monitoring, remove all the catheters, drains, and tubes, end any and all treatments that might provide comfort to the patient. Terminate all life-sustaining measures and behave as any sane doctor would behave. Does that about cover it, Doctor?" Amelia got up and yelled at Meredith.  
"Amelia. Is that what you want to talk to me about while I sit here with my sleeping children who just lost their father?" Meredith wondered.  
"He's still breathing." Amelia mumbled.  
"It's the machine that breathes for him." Meredith cried "Don't you get it? He's dead!"  
"So you want to talk about killing my brother, your children's father? Give her the papers, Edwards." Amelia stormed off.  
"If you can't live with the fact that you haven't been good enough, don't take this out on me! Get out of this room!" Meredith yelled while Amelia was already leaving.  
Amelia turned around and walked closer to Meredith "You don't know me, not really. You don't know where I've been or what I've had to overcome, because you have never had to. You've never lost the love of your life. You have never cried over the body of the person you love most in this world. You You don't know how that messes a person up. You've never had to crawl your way back from that. But I have. I'm still trying to pull myself together, and I am doing the very best that I can, so Until you've done that, until you've had to walk in my shoes, I need you to cut me some slack And back the hell off."  
"You went out of your way to make sure I have to!" Meredith said "I don't want you in that room when they unplug him!"

* * *

"Bailey?" Meredith walked into Miranda's office.  
"Meredith, I'm sorry. Just I can't believe that" Miranda didn't have a clue what to say. Tears were running down her face. This day felt like an endless series of nightmares.  
"Hey, there's no crying in surgery." Meredith told her "Isn't that what you taught me?"  
Bailey sniffed "I think this is an exception to that rule."  
"Yeah." Meredith chuckled "Well, we'll just, uh, we'll have a cry I need you to help me do something for Derek. A request."  
"Whatever you need, Meredith!" Dr. Bailey nodded.

* * *

It was the middle of the night of a very long day that had been preceeded by another very long night and very long day. "You are still sitting here." Richard said when he noticed that Meredith was studying Derek's chart while sitting on his bedside  
"I'm trying to make sense of this. Figure out what I'm going to do..." Meredith told him with teary eyes. "I mean, I know what I'm looking at."  
"You don't have to sign the papers straight away. Take a few days..." Richard offered.  
"He wanted to go to the beach. We were talking about actually going on a honeymoon..." Meredith began to cry "But, here we are and... Most people don't get a happy ever after. They barely get ever afters. Why would Derek and I be any different?"  
"Because you were." Richard insisted.  
"You know ever since that plane crash-or that shooting- you know, the the coma, he's… He was" she sighed "straddling two worlds. He had one foot in death and the…. That's why he was so" She didn't know what to call it.  
"So what?" Richard wondered.  
"that's why he was the way he was." She cried.  
"McDreamy?" Richard laughed. The nickname they had come up with during their intern year made Meredith laugh.  
"Yeah. Yeah. And he should've he could've died in that shooting, but somehow" she inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply. "something brought him back. Something always brought him back."  
"That was you." Richard inhaled deeply and began to cry "Meredith, it was you."he exhaled and sniffed.  
"And we had five more years. Yeah. And two beautiful children. Three." Meredith said "So, I guess, I'm not alone now. He never wanted me to be alone if something happened to him"  
Richard nodded.  
"It wasn't doomed." Meredith exhaled "No.- It was luck. I was blessed to have a love like this"  
Richard took her hand and she continued to talk.  
"We weren't cursed. We were blessed and if I could go back to that night in the bar... I would -I would tell him how amazing all of it was going to be." Meredith looked at Derek's face.

They sat next to each other for a while and neither one said a thing. Listening to the steady sounds of the monitors was somehow comforting because it was familiar. It was something they heard every day. "He told me that all of his sisters would be there if he was in a coma once. And now it'd just me and him!" Meredith looked at Richard.  
"You kicked Amelia out." Richard reminded her. "and it's going to be a while until his other sisters arrive from the East coast."  
"She doesn't deserve to be there." Meredith told him.  
"Maybe you have to forgive her that she was in that OR, that it was her who was fighting a losing battle, that she saved the guy who had caused the accident that send you and him on that road while he was running out of time. It's not too late, and it's probably what Derek would have wanted!" he told her.  
"Do you know that Ellis tried to kill herself the day you left her? Her blood was running all over the Floor. Something in her died that day." Meredith told her "She stopped fighting for her own happiness."  
"She left Seattle and never looked back. The carousel never stops turning." Richard told her.  
"That sounds like something she would have said! Actually she did say it." Meredith giggled and looked at her husband.

* * *

In the mean time Amelia had found a quiet hidding spot on the hospital roof. "I want to punch her! You said I was looking for someone to blame, and you're right, Owen. But it's not her. It's… I don't know! I should have been in that OR earlier! I could have saved him." Amelia cried and looked at Owen.  
His voice broke as he admitted something she didn't know "I sent them. They never would've been on that road if I didn't call."  
"Owen, that is not true. That is not true. It's me and the fucking universe! Every man I ever loved, died. Incluing my Baby. Derek died. He's dead." She cried and looked up to the sky "And I have a baggie of oxy in my pocket and I really just might take it. All of it… and maybe if I wake up, Derek is going to be with me… and Ryan… and…"  
Owen walked up to her "Amelia." He grabbed the bag, but she fought him.  
"Don't interrupt me!" Amelia insisted.  
"I'm not! You get to be mad. You get to have all of your feelings as long as you know, you have to know that I love you and Derek loved you. You're going to survive this." Owen held her face between his hands. "What are you doing up here anyway?"  
"She won't let me be in the room!" Amelia said.  
"So let's just sit here together! See the sun rise! The sun always rises!" Owen smiled and showed Amelia the most beautiful place on the hospital roof.  
"It feels like the end...The end" Amelia cried as she looked at the sun and the yellow sky "It feels like the end and I tried so hard to save him and I couldn't."  
"He was too far gone. There's nothing anyone could have done!" Owen told her and kissed her forehead.  
"No, there wasn't." Amelia nodded "My dad was shot right in front of my eyes. I wanted to scream, but Derek pulled me so Close to him and… I watched the blood running over the floor. He was killed because he didn't want to give them the watch mom had given him for their wedding anniversary"

* * *

"Dr. Weber said you wanted to see me." Amelia said after she had opened the door.  
"I... it's what Derek would have wanted... and we are obviously going to wait until your sisters are here too, if you want them here." Meredith said.  
"My dad died when I was really young." Amelia stated.  
"I know." Meredith nodded. "Derek didn't like to talk about it, but we touched the topic."  
"You know, what helped me keep going was my mother. Every night she said 'Good night. I love you. See you tomorrow" and there was no confusion. There was no doubt that she loved me enough for both of them, and that even in his absence, she would be there, always." Amelia paused and they both looked at the man they both loved "So can you promise me that you won't kick me out?"  
"Why would I?" Meredith wondered.  
"Because I'm annoying and because I'm the surgeon that couldn't save him." Amelia said.  
"And you are his sister -and he loved you. And you might be annoying, but I love you. You are family." Meredith tried to fight off the tears "I had this patient in intern year. There were two people stuck on a pole after a train accident – and her spine was crushed and they decided to save the guy because she was beyond saving. She would have died anyway once the shock wore off. I mean I knew it back then, but your brother..." and Meredith stopped and while this had been a painful memory, nothing was as painful as the prospect of losing him forever "and Addison... Addison had just turned up in Seattle, her hair all perfect and... I asked him to pick me and that I'd wait at Joe's... he never made it to the bar because of that accident... and he went home with Addison afterwards, but I knew there was hope... I knew he hadn't given up on us. The fiance came over from Boise and... Derek told him that if love was enough, she'd still be there. So that's what I took from this: If love was enough, he'd still be here"

* * *

Callie sat in the attendings' lounge and leaned her head against Arizona's shoulder. It was the first time since the divorce that their bodies touched. "I can't believe we couldn't save him"  
"I hid in a supply closet yesterday because I had flashbacks of the plane crash" Arizona told Callie "and now I keep hearing Meredith's tears and Derek's screams and... why do you survive a plane crash and get hit by a semi?"  
"Are you alright?" Callie wondered  
"There were six of us – and now it's just Meredith, Cristina and me." Arizona took Callie's hand.  
Callie pulled back and looked at Arizona.

* * *

Derek's sister had arrived and Liz walked to Meredith and hugged her "I can't believe it." She cried as she looked at her brother. "I'm so sorry"  
"Meredith, Amy" Nancy said and looked at her brother. Neither one said a word as Nancy grabbed a chair and sat down by her brother's side "So what's going to happen now?" Nancy wondered.  
"They are going to extubate him" Amelia mumbled and looked at her older sister.  
Kathleen smiled when she walked in and looked at Amelia "I'm so sorry that we have to meet like this, but it is so good to see you, Amelia" she hugged her. "You look... different. All grown up. " Suddenly she teared up "I can't believe that Derek's dead... and Mark's dead...it's like a death trap here... and I was supposed to come over for a happy occasion, but now it's a funeral and... oh my God Meredith, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry"  
"There was nothing anyone could have done" Meredith said. "I'm sure he would have wanted you to be here"  
"We are going to stay until after the funeral" Liz took Amelia's hand.  
"I'm not your charity case." Amelia pulled back and started to rant. "I... it's my fault, I'm a neurosurgeon and... I should have been able to save him... and I wasn't good enough and I should... I should quit and do something I'm good at, which is..." Suddenly Nancy got up and slapped her sister. Everyone in the room was surprised. "You are the head of your department and you don't get to waste all those years of education because of that. I read your name in a medical journal and one of my patients ask me whether I was related to THE Dr. Shepherd. I thought he was referring to Derek, but she was talking about you. So, even if you feel like storming off, you don't get to do that Amelia." She said "I love you and I know that you are very good at what you are doing"  
"I couldn't save him" Amelia cried.  
"It's not your fault, Amy" Liz interrupted her "He loved you very much and he was proud of you and... mom was so proud. Derek died"  
"He's still breathing" Amelia cried "He's still breathing and there's nothing we can do"

"After I stop his medication, I'm gonna extubate him." Stephanie started. Dr. Webber had given her directions on how to handle a case like this.  
"Okay, we're all doctors here. You don't need to say this." Amelia told her.  
"I'm not saying it because you need to know the procedure. I say it because even if you think you're prepared for what's about to happen, you're not. Your brain can't fully absorb what we're about to do." Stephanie said and instead of looking at the family, she was looking at the wall because she hoped that she could hold back the tears "But by saying this I'm giving you a little time to catch up. So after I stop his medications I'm gonna extubate him. As indicated in his living will, Derek asked that, if life-sustaining procedures would only prolong the moment of death, that these procedures be discontinued. Derek asked that if he were unable to make his own medical decisions, that his directive be honored by his chosen proxy. His final request was that only comfort care be given to him in his final moments. Once support is removed, he may only hold on for a few minutes or the process could take hours."

"Can you wait, Richard?" Meredith looked at the man her mother had laughed.

"Sure. Alex is out there with my kids. If this takes a while." He nodded. "They'll be taken care of"  
"We got them. Don't worry. We're gonna begin now. You can sit next to him." Stephanie told her.  
"Wait." Meredith told her and all of Derek's sisters looked at her.  
"Mer!" Amelia looked surprised.  
"Just wait!" she insisted and tried getting through to him one last time while all their moments flashedback right in front of her eyes "Derek. Derek."

 _So, what's your story? I don't have a story. I'm just a girl in a bar. I'm just a guy in a bar. Want to go again? I love you, Meredith Grey. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You're the love of my life. I can't leave you. You were like coming up for fresh air. It's like I was drowning, and you saved me. I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you forever. So, um, goodbye. Um Derek. Derek. Right. Meredith. - Meredith. - Yeah. Mm-hmm. - Nice meeting you. - Bye, Derek. Derek._

"It's okay. You go. We'll be fine. And we are going to have another Baby. It's what you wanted." She smiled and noticed the shocked look on his sister's faces.  
"You are... I'll be an aunt." Amelia bit her lip and started crying.  
"Are you ready?" Stephanie wondered.  
"No. But go ahead." Amelia told her.  
"I'm turning the ventilator off. We've sedated him with morphine so he's not feeling any of this. I'll give you some privacy."

* * *

"This is taking too long" Stephanie mumbled after three hours.  
"Is this a bad thing?" Alex wondered. "I mean, he's dying."  
"He's brain dead" Stephanie told Alex "He is dead"  
"Have you ever misdiagnosed something like this?" Stephanie wondered "I mean, Dr. Grey looked at the scans, Dr. Shepherd looked at the scans. Man, I wish I misdiagnosed this one"  
"You didn't" Alex sighed "His stats have been dropping for all this time now."  
"It'd be nice though" Stephanie said "having him wake up from the dead"  
"That's not how it works" Alex looked at Stephanie's chart "You can't stop the inevitable. If things are meant to hit the fan, they will"  
"I'd give everything for him to wake up" Stephanie sighed.  
"I know" Alex stood next to her. "I'll page Richard now"

* * *

 _We're so hopeful at the beginning of things. It seems like there's only a world to be gained not lost. They say the inability to accept loss is a form of insanity, it's probably true. But sometimes, it's the only way to stay alive._

* * *

People were gathered in the living room of their house. There were indistinct conversations in the background. Derek's sisters were talking to the doctors. There was a huge turn-up.  
"Do you remember that old show "Just Like Mom" where the kids would take over the kitchen?" Richard laughed "Good to see you, too, April."  
"She has to put something in her stomach." April insisted.  
"No, I agree, but preferably something her stomach isn't gonna reject." Alex laughed.  
"And why does your generation always think a smoothie is the answer to everything? Hmm?" Richard wondered and looked at the green drink while the blender was whirring.  
"10 more seconds!" April mumbled while the whirring continued.

Alex took the drink from the counter and went into the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom. He knew that Meredith had locked herself in there.

"It's me." Alex knocked on the door.  
"Be out in a minute." Meredith shouted while holding on to a picture of Derek.  
"Mer, you said that 10 minutes ago." Alex reminded her.

Locks clicked and Alex chuckled "Can I come in?" he wondered and handed her the smoothie April had made.  
"You wanna make Bailey and Zola an orphan?" Meredith looked at it suspiciously.  
"Kepner made this!" Alex laughed and closed the door behind himself "You've barely eaten in days."  
Meredith sighed and set down the glass "Well, it turns out the shock's moved on and it's just emptiness all the time."  
"The souvenir you get from loving somebody, I guess." Alex nodded.  
"Emptiness?" Meredith nodded.  
"No. Grief." Alex sighed. "But grief heals with time. We're all here for you, Meredith. You have our support."  
"I know, but I can't stay here..." Meredith said "this house, he's everywhere. Can I stay at the old house for a while?"  
"You can, for as long as you need to." Alex smiled softly. "This house is always open. The person I bought it from told me something about legacy"  
"Thanks. Your girlfriend is getting annoyed by us, you realize that."Meredith stated.  
"Jo will be fine." Alex smiled. "and you will be fine... what are you doing in here anyway?"  
"Pretending to be okay." Meredith laughed. "I keep having this dream. I'm waiting for an elevator and the doors open and he's there. He's smiling and his hair looks amazing, he sees me and smiles and tells me he's been waiting for me."  
Alex saw the tears that were running down her face "Are you okay?"  
"Yeah, I keep having this dream and... it's beautiful and it keeps me going because I know that he'll wait for me."


End file.
